Less than a year after launching as a company, tech startup JUXTA looks to revolutionize convenient retail with the official launch of its offering – a portable mini mart called the Nomad designed as an autonomous, turnkey solution for EV charging stations in the US and Europe. Following the Nomad’s recent launch, JUXTA has announced multiple partners, and you may see one of these unstaffed stores near you soon.
JUXTA describes itself as a global technology and micro convenience company founded in North Carolina in 2022. As a subsidiary of industrial tech company Vontier operating within fueling and convenience store equipment provider Gilbarco Veeder-Root, JUXTA’s immediate focus is on the b2b sector – more specifically, providing accessible retail to the EV charging segment.
That journey begins with the Nomad mini mart, portable, easy to install, and completely unstaffed – perfect for the growing number of EV charging stations in the US and beyond. JUXTA made its official launch in the US in August, showcasing the Nomad for the first time at the Renewal 2023 festival in Colorado in September.
During the event, JUXTA’s 24-hour autonomous convenience store served thousands festival goers looking for cold drinks or snacks. As you’ll see in the video below, customers simply swipe or tap a card to enter, grab what they want, and exit. Or, they can stop at a touchscreen and recap their order before exiting. JUXTA explains it best:
Inside the Nomad, shelf and cabinet sensors instantly detect when an item is picked up, and an array of cameras will anonymously identify by whom. The information is combined in the cloud to create a digital basket for each customer. If a family or group of shoppers enter the store, JUXTA’s AI-driven technology will collate their purchases.
An autonomous mini mart feels like a perfect option for the EV world as those drivers spend 15 to 35 minutes at charging stations and could probably use a snack sometimes. According to JUXTA, that’s the plan and your local chargers may soon have a portable convenience store dropped off nearby.
JUXTA in discussions to bring marts to charging stations
According to news from JUXTA this morning, the young startup has already secured multiple retail partners to provide provisions to its Nomad mini markets. The first is Choice Market in Denver, which will be home to the state’s first portable, autonomous convenience store.
Another retailer onboard is Golden Pantry out of Georgia, which has also signed on for a mini mart installation in Watkinsville. Okay, but what about EV charging stations? Isn’t that why JUXTA designed the Nomad mini markets in the first place?
Top comment by Elysia
Still makes more sense to put chargers near businesses we already frequent - restaurants, grocery stores, shopping plazas, etc - than to build charging stations in the middle of nowhere and try to bring businesses to the remote charging stations.
A representative for the company told Electrek that JUXTA is in discussions with several EV charging networks about implementing the Nomad marts at stations, but there’s nothing more it can share at this time. JUXTA co-founder Om Shankar shared similar sentiment mentioning interest from EV automakers when discussing the Nomad’s rapid uptake after a mere month since launch:
To be signing retail partners and fielding enquiries from some of the largest EV OEMs in the world is validation of JUXTA’s vision for the Nomad solution. Our proprietary technology and store format combination, working in partnership with renowned brands, has the power to redefine the industry. Our solution mitigates multitude challenges in the retail segment, from real estate cost and utilization, squeezed profit margins, access to 24-hr service, labor shortages and staffing issues, including instant, simple and contactless pay, and quick set up, in any location, no matter how remote. The Nomad offers an all ‘round seamless solution to these challenges and at the same time, we believe it to be the most profitable per square foot convenience retail format in the world.
While the EV OEMs and charging networks inquiring about JUXTA’s mini marts at local stations remains a mystery for now, there appears to be interest and for good reason. We’ve seen fellow US company Tesla roll out automated, cube-shaped stores near Superchargers in Germany and more permanent lounges from Audi in its native land with great success.
Providing a less permanent, turnkey solution could be a home run for charging stations looking to add a snack mart but have less of a footprint available to support it (the Nomad’s interior is only 264 square-feet). This will be a startup to keep an eye on as it publicly confirms more partners in the EV charging and OEM spaces.
The JUXTA Nomads are expected to begin rolling out in the US in 2023 and Europe in 2024. For now, check out this video explaining how the Nomad mini mart works:
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